Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

[Marcel Birgelen]

When our technician was last here (October, I think) and we were tuning up the 3-D, he said, "3-D looks good, the only complaints you should get will be about the plot."

Would be interesting to hear if you had people actually complaining about the plot.

Yikes! I can't imagine watching it more than once, especially so soon. Maybe if I had nothing else to do with my time. Oh wait I just remembered... I can always watch dust collect on the floor. That's just as fun and CHEAPER!

Do you get paid for watching dust collect on the floor? If so, where can I sign up for that?

But full disclosure: I didn't watch the movie in its entirety four times already...

This means the movie itself has nothing to offer as it simply can't stand on its own. If it needs gimmicks, there's really no substance there. Why do we need 3-5 more upcoming movies of this same gimmick?

I'm not sure... some people go on the same theme park ride like 6 times in a row. I never really anticipated that this movie would become somewhat of a hit.

I totally agree with you that this isn't a movie I'd be putting on the top of my "best ever" list any time soon. But the thing is, I don't tend to watch those movies on that list too often either, because they are, you know, somewhat special. The reason I watched this one in four different formats are:

- Because I'm a nerd interested in this stuff.
- Because it's part of my job.

Not because I consider this the next Godfather.

Would I rather see the talents of James Cameron being spend on something else than 10 other space-smurf movies? Heck yeah... but he seems to have his own plans and until now I can't really prove him wrong, even though this movie may not break all the records, it will most likely end up being cashflow positive, despite its enormous production costs and a challenging climate for blockbuster movie releases.

Maybe the speaker drivers are literally hammering those thin bars installed across them. What are those things anyway?

Maybe that's the metal strip holding the lightning effects in place? Those glowing red rings, which are supposed to make the thing look futuristic... The irony in this is that the original Dolby Cinema concept was just NOT to expose the technology in the room and hide all the speakers in the room behind scrims. The budget implementation at AMC specificly hightlights all the speakers with those cheap LED strip effects...

If only AMC could design their auditoriums better where exit lights weren't bleeding light onto the screens! I hate that crap. If they can't bother to use curtains and masking the very least thing they could do is install a "visor" of sorts on the left/right ends and/or bottom edge of the screen to cut down on the exit door light pollution. A shadow box like some General Cinema screens used might be an extreme solution. I would just appreciate proper curtains and masking.

A shadow box is an effective solution that can be installed for just a few dollars. The simple fact that so many cinemas simply let their emergency exits bleed onto the screen without taking the slightest of measures to combat the issue is a simple sign of how much they actually care about their own product.

In case of Dolby Cinema: The entire raison d'être for that format was to deliver the absolute technical best that the industry offers. Unfortinately, such concepts often start strong, but get compromised down to the lowest common denominator once volumes need to be attained the easy way... The same happened to THX, IMAX, ATMOS, you name it...

[Bobby Henderson]

Maybe that's the metal strip holding the lightning effects in place? Those glowing red rings, which are supposed to make the thing look futuristic... The irony in this is that the original Dolby Cinema concept was just NOT to expose the technology in the room and hide all the speakers in the room behind scrims. The budget implementation at AMC specificly hightlights all the speakers with those cheap LED strip effects...

All that red lighting is a hold-over from AMC's previous "Prime" premium priced "format" offering. The only difference between a Prime auditorium and AMC's version of Dolby Cinema is the dual laser projectors. Both concepts have Atmos. The most recent Dolby Cinema @ AMC installations have ditched all the red LED lighting stuff on the speakers and just have some more sedate blue border lighting. IIRC, in Colorado Springs AMC's Chapel Hills Mall theater has a former Carmike "Big D" house that was converted to Dolby Cinema and it has the blue border lighting stuff. But, yeah, it doesn't have all that stealth fighter wall decor stuff from the original Dolby Cinema concept.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Yeah, something happened in the world the last few years, so my last visit to an AMC is quite a few years back. Looking at the picture of those speakers, still, the only reason I can come up with for that rod being there is for the lightning effects, I can't think of any other purpose. Like anything coming loose on a speaker, it could very well introduce rattling artifacts. If those lights are no longer in use, then the fact they didn't get rid of them may be another sign of their level of "giving a shit"...

I found those retrofit Dolby Cinema installs that went into many of the "AMC Prime" theaters to be pretty lacking, compared to what the vision of Dolby Cinema originally was, but I suppose they couldn't get a deal done with AMC, where they would retrofit the entire room, like they did in those original installs. Not only did they install those stealth-bomber scrims, they installed an almost insane amount of padding behind it. They redesigned the air conditioning in the room and tore out the existing seating for those rooms that weren't new builds. The idea was that you couldn't just retrofit Dolby Cinema in an existing theater, it was essentially a complete rebuild. There was also nothing luxurious about the seating itself, no recliners, just plain, but comfortable seats and OK leg-room, nothing wild. The idea wasn't to pamper the guest with the most luxurious seating, the movie was supposed to be the star.

Although I always found the name to be confusing and my biggest gripe was the unmasked, floating screen, I thought that the concept could've been valuable. If consistency would've been maintained, the concept could've been a seal of some guaranteed base-level quality, just like THX once used to be...

[Mike Blakesley]

It's too bad that as soon as a movie becomes a hit these days, the director, writer or releasing studio (or all three) immediately announces four or five sequels. WHY do they do that? It just makes them look like idiots if the first sequel underperforms, then they wind up with egg on their face and canceling the other movies.

Look at James Bond. He does a few things that most franchises don't, to wit:

1. James Bond is never more than one movie ahead. At the end of each movie, it'll say "James Bond Will Return." That's IT. No promise of the next five James Bonds, no date either.... just keep your eyes open for the next installment.

2. James Bond is never mentioned in the title. I blame Indiana Jones for this phenomenon.

3. There are never any "colons" in a James Bond movie title, either. "Skyfall" managed to make over $300 million despite it not being titled "James Bond 007: Skyfall." If the franchise is well known you don't NEED the original movie's name in the title. "Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker" would have made just as much money if it had been called simply "The Rise of Skywalker." This is an illustration of how dopey movie studio marketers are: They feel they must put the original title in all the sequel titles, BUT then they release onesheets without the title on them! (I guess we should be thankful they're still releasing onesheets at all.)

[Frank Cox]

I wrote here a while back that there are less and less onesheets all the time. I used to always have a fair-sized box to pick out of, now it's just a smallish roll and sometimes I'm a bit stuck for what to put on the wall since there's such a limited choice.

[Mike Blakesley]

My booker told me that "onesheets are on the way out" which is a real shame, we don't seem to get them anymore unless a movie is actually booked -- except Disney, as many gripes as we have about them, they ARE very good about sending out advance onesheets. To hold out until a booking is secured is kind of dumb, because with a lot of movies you want to gauge public reaction before committing -- or at least that's what I do, I'm always listening to people's comments about the onesheets. Plus, advance promotion is a pretty good practice.... and small theaters need to promote upcoming movies in advance too. We have 15 total locations for onesheets. I'm working with a local printer to come up with some generic "filler" sheets to stuff in them when we have a shortage of movie posters -- maybe promoting our app, our website, a history of the building, photo gallery of past employees or whatever.

With 3 nights left of Avatar 2, I'm still pretty surprised at the reaction to the 3-D. I thought sure that I'd be getting all sorts of requests by now to please have some 2-D shows. But we have had no requests at all. About 10 days ago I put up a Facebook post asking "is there anybody out there who wants to see it in 2-D?" and I got exactly one response. So now I think if we were to go to 2-D, it would have the opposite effect -- people coming in being disappointed that it's NOT in 3-D.

[Frank Cox]

I'd still like to find out what's a good and reasonably priced "movie poster sized" electronic display panel that I could buy to put in the window when the onesheets disappear.

I see these things hanging in all kinds of places from stores to restaurants, but they're sure hard to get any information on. Maybe all of these places just use regular televisions? The one outfit that I found that did these displays sold them for what seems like a really high price and then they charge a yearly license fee on top of that for the software to run the display.

[Jon Dent]

In some cases they are off the shelf 1080p displays that are turned on their sides. Not all TVs can do that though so they have to use specific model number. If you could get a hold of one you could use RTS to drive them (if you use that POS system) or even a Google Chromecast.

[Mike Blakesley]

I wonder if RTS could drive multiple poster-screens for movies that aren't out yet? If so, that'd be the ideal solution, albeit an expensive one.

We have 2 poster locations that are in outside windows, so they get the full heat of the sun all day.... that could play havoc on a TV screen. But yeah, airports are full of vertical display screens ... there's gotta be companies that specialize in such things, or plenty of plain jane TVs that could handle it.

EDIT: I just looked at RTS' website, they do offer custom signage including "coming soon" onesheets that is included with your RTS software cost. You just attach a Google Chromecast to each TV screen and you're in business. From what I can tell, you source your own TVs and Chromecasts.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'd still like to find out what's a good and reasonably priced "movie poster sized" electronic display panel that I could buy to put in the window when the onesheets disappear.

I see these things hanging in all kinds of places from stores to restaurants, but they're sure hard to get any information on. Maybe all of these places just use regular televisions? The one outfit that I found that did these displays sold them for what seems like a really high price and then they charge a yearly license fee on top of that for the software to run the display.

All of those screens are "ordinary screens" which have been turned 90 degrees. Yeah, there is a difference between professional panels and ordinary TVs, but the biggest difference is the price. One fancy feature of professional displays is that you can remote control them via serial or often also Ethernet. That way, they can also be turned on and off remotely. You can also lock channels and settings, so nobody can mess around by pressing buttons or using some remote control commands. On ordinary TVs and computer displays being used as such a display, you should make sure those buttons are unreachable and you should cover the IR port with something.

You're an avid Linux user, your X Windows system does have options to turn your screen around for 90 degrees. I know so, because I've done so myself for narrowcasting software. Some specific Android distributions also allow you to turn the screen 90 degrees. Most modern narrowcasting systems are based on some browser running a HTML driven show in kiosk mode. If you're a bit into programming, web technology and experimentation, you could easily come up with something yourself.

[Lyle Romer]

I wonder if RTS could drive multiple poster-screens for movies that aren't out yet? If so, that'd be the ideal solution, albeit an expensive one.

We have 2 poster locations that are in outside windows, so they get the full heat of the sun all day.... that could play havoc on a TV screen. But yeah, airports are full of vertical display screens ... there's gotta be companies that specialize in such things, or plenty of plain jane TVs that could handle it.

EDIT: I just looked at RTS' website, they do offer custom signage including "coming soon" onesheets that is included with your RTS software cost. You just attach a Google Chromecast to each TV screen and you're in business. From what I can tell, you source your own TVs and Chromecasts.

For a screen with sun beating on it, I would think you'd need some serious UV filtering on the outside glass or the plastic used to make up the LCD (or even OLED) will probably disintegrate relatively quickly. For that application I would think some kind of micro LED display is needed. Either that or really cheap TVs that you replace every year or more frequently.

[Frank Cox]

Since it would be a simple display of pre-selected graphics in some kind of a sequence, turning the desktop screen around wouldn't really be necessary -- just orient the graphics sideways.

It has occurred to me that a simple Libreoffice slideshow might be an easy solution since it already has built-in transition effects, all the starbusts and wipes and sliders, to make it pretty.

Or I'll just write some kind of a program that pulls graphics from a directory and displays them. Then changing the show would just require adding or deleting graphics in that directory. It would be easy to add the current time and weather that way, too.

However, I'm nowhere near the point of actually doing this since I'm still getting (some) onesheets and haven't got any hardware to do it with anyway.

In terms of putting the display in the window I'm lucky in that my front windows face north, away from the sun.

And snow tends to blow across the street and pile up in front of the restaurant instead of in front of my theatre.

[Darin Steffl]

We use this for up to 10 screens free. It runs on Fire TV and it's the best/cheapest I could find for 1-10 screens.

https://www.posterbooking.com/

[Mike Blakesley]

For a screen with sun beating on it, I would think you'd need some serious UV filtering on the outside glass or the plastic used to make up the LCD (or even OLED) will probably disintegrate relatively quickly. For that application I would think some kind of micro LED display is needed. Either that or really cheap TVs that you replace every year or more frequently.

I guess I didn't think too much about the sun/heat destroying the TV itself -- I was thinking more about how the image would look with the sun on it. Unfortunately we face to the south, so the front windows get sun pretty much every day of the year. Of course a printed poster looks great with the sun shining on it.

I might need to come up with some way to display the "current attraction" inside the lobby (a few yards away from the windows) and hope people look in to see the display.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Do you really have to worry about UV light burning out your display up there in Montana? While LCDs may fade when exposed to excessive amounts of UV light, a simple UV blocking pane of glass should solve that problem, if it's really a problem in your region. Most modern HDR screens should be bright enough to be visible in most daylight situations. In comparable situations, normal onesheets would probably also be problematic.

While their contrast is pretty awesome, try to avoid OLED screens for this purpose, not just because they're too expensive, they DO have the nasty habbit to burn in...

Since it would be a simple display of pre-selected graphics in some kind of a sequence, turning the desktop screen around wouldn't really be necessary -- just orient the graphics sideways.

It has occurred to me that a simple Libreoffice slideshow might be an easy solution since it already has built-in transition effects, all the starbusts and wipes and sliders, to make it pretty.

Or I'll just write some kind of a program that pulls graphics from a directory and displays them. Then changing the show would just require adding or deleting graphics in that directory. It would be easy to add the current time and weather that way, too.

However, I'm nowhere near the point of actually doing this since I'm still getting (some) onesheets and haven't got any hardware to do it with anyway.

In terms of putting the display in the window I'm lucky in that my front windows face north, away from the sun.

And snow tends to blow across the street and pile up in front of the restaurant instead of in front of my theatre.

Any sufficiently sized LCD panel would do, together with an old PC you've probably laying around somewhere.

With some light Googling, I found this tutorial with some Python code of how to do some neat image transitions, stuff that looks a bit more professional than those campy Libreoffice Presentation transitions, they take me right back to when WordArt was popular or when people discovered Photoshop and had to add a Lens Flare and beveled edges to everything...